Thursday 19 April 2012

Churchy ramblings

It's funny (well the opposite really ) when things in life don't go how you plan isn't it ? I don't think they ever go exactly as you plan cos you only have the knowledge and experience of things as you are now, and a plan is usually in the future, so you never know how things/you/life will be then, so how can things go as we plan ? huh ?................................. I have no idea.


I think I am finally realising that when things don't go how you had planned for a loooooong period of time, it's time to make a new plan. Or dream a new dream. 


I have always been a 'churchy' kind of bod. Whatever plans there have been in my head, have always involved God, His plans, His church. But more recently 'church' the place you go on a Sunday, has been a tricky place to get to. The old CFS monster forces me to rest lots over the weekend, so that has to come first. I guess it has been like that for a loooong time, but pre baby I always had monday as a recovery day. ( a recovery day from church - I know it sounds weird ey !) but now my Mondays start at 7.30am if I'm ready or not, and require me to be vertical for most of the time until about 6pm. So the Sunday trip to worship God in church with a bunch of other crazy God botherers, mostly doesn't happen. Let alone any other activities like this during the week.


But family goings on and a tricky health type situation isn't always easy to fit into something you have always done. My faith is more than just going to church on a Sunday, but not being an active part of a church rattles my cage a little.


So it's time to have a re think, how does all this fit together? This stage of life, the bit now, in this decade, the bringing up small kids bit. how does it work with church/CFS/kids/husband/staying sane.


It's time to look at it all from a different angle, rather than trying to force my life, our lives, into the package I thought it would fit into about now. This feels like a more positive way of looking at it, not just what I/we as a family can't do, but what we could maybe make work somehow. 


I don't have any solutions to this conundrum just yet,  but I'm beginning to try to discover one. I would give anything to go back to when Jesus was on earth, or in the early church, and hang out with some families from that time. I would love to see how they intertwined family/marriage/children/poor health/bereavement into the way they lived as a community of people following Jesus. I think I get it a bit, but I'd love to know more. I'd love to read some letters to the early church written by a woman. Don't get me wrong, I love paul's letters, but he was a man, and well, lets be honest, probably a slightly chauvinistic one. So yes, ACTS written by a woman, I'd like to read that. Or the Gospel according to Mary, or Martha maybe. 


Anyway I digress from what can only be described as really rambling ramblings.


I read recently one of those quote type things - the ones I usually dislike, it said 'live the life you have, cos it probably won't change and might not get any better '. 
.............Yes that sounds awfully pessimistic, but I think you can make that a moto with hope dolloped alongside it, with one eye on the glory that is to come. I find this prospect painful, but exciting at the same time.


Life on this earth might not get easier, but finding Joy and delight in Him and what I have now is the way to go.


I think for the time being anyway.



2 comments:

  1. Me and my husband know the feeling. We used to go to Church, but it's become more and more impossible. Last summer we tried going a couple of times - just staying for part of the service, and it made my husband so ill we haven't dared try again since. I don't know about you, but I find Church struggles to cope with ill people. I could go on a very long rant, but I shall leave it there! *hugs* Helen xx

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    1. Hi helen, Yes it can be tricky and frustrating. We sometimes go for just an hour and that can work well. We are fortunate to have lots of close friends at church who are very caring and give us wonderful support, which is a massive blessing to us.
      But as a whole yes sometimes feels like people who are ill kind of get in the way of what's going on, which can't be right can it ?!
      Sometimes i'm the problem though as I like to chat to people which tires me out !

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